Pollution? What pollution?

Our opinion: The gas industry says its work is safe, but tainted water tells another story. Exploiting one resource shouldn’t mean the ruination of another.

How many polluted water supplies will it take for the natural gas industry to admit that it has a problem? That just might be the first step toward a productive discussion of whether drilling should be expanded in New York, and on what terms. Until then, the public has every reason to be skeptical.

As an Associated Press story detailed Sunday, residents of Dimock, Pa., have spent the last three years coping with water supplies so laden with methane that some can light their drinking water on fire. They depend on water brought in by tanker trucks for drinking, bathing and washing clothes and dishes.

Nine square miles of Dimock were polluted by what Pennsylvania regulators say was faulty well construction by Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., one of the firms that seized on the gas boom in the vast Marcellus Shale that lies under six states, including New York. The experiences of Dimock and other communities are instructive as New York weighs whether to open itself to a similar gas rush.

Equally instructive is the reaction of an industry that asks to be trusted with natural resources that can’t easily be replaced, like clean, safe drinking water.

Even as tests continue to show methane in Dimock’s drinking water, Cabot insists the water is clean.

Even as Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection finds methane leaking from Cabot’s wells, Cabot — which initially said the methane was naturally occurring — says they’re all fixed.

Even as some residents say they still can’t use their own wells, the company is pressing regulators to let it resume drilling — and let it stop paying to bring in clean water.

The gas industry, too, is in a similar state of denial, insisting that the drilling method it’s using in the Marcellus Shale, horizontal hydraulic fracturing, is not to blame for the pollution. It’s the way some of the wells were built, the industry says, not the way they’re operated. To a homeowner or community without clean drinking water, that is a distinction without a difference.

And even the distinction may be illusory. Horizontal hydraulic fracturing involves pumping chemical-laced water into wells to fracture the shale and release trapped gas. Dimock residents say some of those chemicals have turned up in their wells. And Cabot? It says it isn’t to blame.

Meanwhile, here in New York, the Cuomo administration seems to be proceeding as if drilling is inevitable, even as it has yet to figure out how it will pay the estimated $20 million a year tab to monitor an industry that objects to paying new fees. The industry says more gas exploration would bring more revenue from existing permit fees.

The state assures us that any damage will be cleaned up, yet it proposes requiring only a small financial guarantee from drillers.

And more than 250 doctors recently warned Gov. Andrew Cuomo that the state’s environmental review failed to meaningfully analyze possible health problems — such as those being reported among people living near gas drilling sites in Texas, Wyoming, Louisiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and other states. Problems, no doubt, that the gas industry will say it had nothing to do with.

Skeptical?

Until the gas industry stops insulting New Yorkers’ intelligence and acknowledges its own implicit dangers, and until the valid concerns of hundreds of physicians and other concerned citizens are addressed, we are.

7 Responses

Yet more hysteria from blind opponents to drilling. $20 million out of a budget of $135 Billion can be found in dozens of places, starting with replacing the bloated DEC Headquarters staff working a quarter-time job with full-time pay with on-site field inspectors who will work for a living.

The issue is not the $20 million, it is the obstructionist, sky-is-falling envirowackos who oppose drilling no matter how many safeguards are put into place.

@b arbane,
You need to stop watching Fox News and listening to wingnut radio and pay more attentions to scientists and people with common sense. I’m not opposed to drilling as long as the gas companies pay for any damage caused by creating and operating the gas wells. If they won’t be creating any problem why don’t the gas companies just agree in advance to do this? This is just another example of greed trumping wisdom.

Pollution of groundwater and water supplies is inevitable, undeniable and unstoppable with hydrofracking. Any spin by the drilling companies is just that – ‘spin’ – or as people used to call it, ‘lying’. Btw . . . I used to work for DEC years ago, full-time, in groundwater protection. Why won’t the drilling companies disclose exactly what chemicals they will be pumping into the earth? Greed and spin, spin and greed. Fracking will be followed by some sort of environmental disaster (with scale as yet unknown), as has been the case already in PA – followed by spin, and outrage and polluted water. Reminds me of Lucy holding the football for Charley Brown to kick promising that this time she won’t pull the football away at the last second so he misses and trips. But don’t worry – this is progress and it’s only water and human health at stake.

People are stupid. You can’t live without water. You can live without gas. There are other energy alternatives available but they will never see the light of day as long as the fossil fuels industry spends millions on lobbying our bought-and-paid-for lawmakers…including Cuomo.

Nothing environmentally wacko about it. Hydrofracking has been polluting wells all across the country. Imagine having a well go up across the street from you. You’ll never know when your water might be no good until it’s too late. Don’t forget about the constant truck traffic and noise. I have good friends in Dimock whose water is no good. We need to keep this out of New York. It’s amazing to me that it’s still being considered. Maybe all those blatantly lying ads have something to do with it.